Printz lost no time in carrying out his instructions. Proceeding up the river from Christiana, he decided to make the seat of government at Jacques Island, the place called by the Indians Tenacong and since Tinicum. Here he built a fort of green logs, mounted on it four brass cannon, and called it Nye (New) Gottenburg.
Thus Printz made the first settlement by white men in what is now Pennsylvania which was destined to survive. Kling was sent to make a settlement on the Schuylkill, and he built a fort near its mouth, called New Korsholm.
Printz, however, was not content with the forts already erected, but a third was built, in 1643, on the east side of the river below Mill Creek, called Fort Elfborg, which was mounted with eight cannon and a mortar, and garrisoned with thirteen soldiers, under Swen Skute. The story is that later the men were driven out by mosquitoes. This fort was intended to shut up the river, a matter which greatly exasperated the Dutch, whose ships, when passing, had to lower their colors and were boarded by the Swedes.
In 1645 these Swedes started what was undoubtedly the first industrial plant in Pennsylvania. That was a small grist mill, which they built on the waters of Cobbs Creek, and when its wheels began to turn the industry of the greatest industrial State in the world began its production.
At Tinicum the Swedish settlements now centered. In three or four years following Printz’s arrival, Tinicum gradually assumed the character of a hamlet.
In 1645, he built a mansion on Tinicum Island, and it long bore the name of Printzhof.
A church was also built at this time, which the Reverend Mr. Campanius dedicated September 4, 1646. This was the first house of Christian worship within the present limits of Pennsylvania.
Indian troubles threatened during 1644. The shocking and unpardonable cruelties of Kieft, the Governor of Manhattan, in which hundreds of Indians, along the Hudson, were slain, caused the belief among the natives that the newcomers were cruel.
In the spring of 1644, two white soldiers and a laborer were killed on the Delaware, below Christiana, and later a Swedish woman and her English husband were killed between Tinicum and Upland. This event was the first tragedy in which white blood was shed in Pennsylvania by the Indians.
Printz assembled his people for defense at Upland, but the Indian chiefs of the region came in, disowned the act, and effected a treaty.